The Garden Slug @ Telok Kurau

Located at Lorong L Telok Kurau (which is somewhere at the east side). We travelled by car, but there was a bus stop about probably 300m away.

cheery looking slug greeting patrons

We reached the place at about 830pm. Last order was about 915pm and the shop closes at 10pm. My friend commented that the place has a chill-out vibe. To me, it's a casual eatery located in the midst of the neighbourhood...

Today's Specials written on blackboard

They have alfresco seatings as well as indoors. If you have a certain fear of cats, then the advice is to choose the indoor seats. Haha, there was a rather well-fed kitty roaming the outside of the cafe. According to the staff, the cat is a regular fixture at The Garden Slug.

no service charge ; )

We were looking at the menu for some minutes and a helpful staff came over and asked if we'd like any recommendations. Yes please, we said. So she proceeded to point to the various parts of the menu and said, "Here's the mains list, we have item 1, item 2, item 3 etc etc.. " Intrigued. I waited for her recommendations still but all she did was just to point and state what was listed at which section (which we can read for ourselves in fact... ). So I asked specifically what is their bestseller for pasta. She then pointed to the items that has a marking and said, "Those are our bestsellers." By then, I knew it would be futile to ask further, so we thanked her for her kind intentions....

In the end, we ordered a "Let's Dig In" platter to share. Can choose any 5 types of items from a selection of finger food to form this dish. So we chose: chicken wings, sausages, calamari, fried mushrooms and bruschetta. It sounds like a lot, but the four of us (3 girls and 1 guy) devoured this platter in no time because everyone was famished!

Let's Dig In!

Sausages

Calamari

Wagyu burger for just $18.90? Sounds like a good deal. So we ordered that. We had it medium rare. It was served with potato wedges or fat fries as my friend calls it.

Wagyu beef burger

Close up on the patty (medium rare)

Frankly speaking, as this was my first time having wagyu, I can't really tell what's the difference between this and regular beef patty. To me, the patty here was slightly overdone above medium rare and perhaps the intention was to have the patty retaining its natural flavor. Unfortunately, I thought it was rather too bland tasting. Liked the toasted bun though.

We also ordered the dory fillet. This dish certainly looked impressive. Huge plate, with the fish served ontop a bed of mashed (with potato skin) and loads of vege. The mashed potato was flavorful and the skin provided some differentiation in texture with each bite.

Dory fillet

served with mashed potato (with skin mixed in) and lots of vege

Service crew were friendly and our meal was served fairly quickly. There's no service charge/GST!

PuTien @ City Square Mall

Located at Level 2 of City Square Mall, near the OCBC bank. It's been a while since I ate any buffets, so was quite anxious about it since I had beehoon for breakfast. But hey, since my friends want to try it, and I get to take pictures, why not! Win-win for all!

Pu Tien has ala-carte buffet at City Square Mall and on weekends it's from 1130am till 230pm (last order). For most of the dishes, the serving size was quite manageable. Our table had 4 ladies and 1 guy, and we managed to try quite a number of the dishes. Our neighbouring tables consist of a larger group and hence, I believed they really did manage to order everything in the menu!




Although it's ala-carte buffet, there are other spread available on the 'buffet' table. Appetisers, fruits and desserts. Drinks are free flow, and patrons can help themselve to the coffee/soft drink dispenser. Teabags and hot water are also available.

Some of the appetisers:


nice to look at but quite tough to bite...


peanuts


shrimp/crabstick mayo




cold pork trotter slice


fried yam, sweet potato ball, and fish


For mains, we started off with soups:


double-boiled duck soup (limited to 1 per pax)


bamboo herbal prawn


I must say that the duck soup was very tasty! It doesn't have the gamey smell of duck, and the meat was tender. It has one slice of 'pao shen' and some kind of mushroom. The prawn soup was pleasantly lighter in taste with a hint of herb, but has fresh firm prawn that is sweet to taste. Hence, if you intend to have these 2 soups, do start with the prawn soup first and then duck soup last.

The restaurant makes its own chili sauce (which is also available for patrons to buy in the restaurant) that added some excitement to the meat.


Putien chili sauce


another soupy dish!


scallops with garlic vermicelli


Next up, we had loads of fried stuff (tsk tsk!):


seafood roll


minced meat with prawn ball (I forgot what's the name for this dish)


inside of the ball


golden flower/chrysanthemum fish


Verdict, the fried stuffs were pretty run-of-the-mill in terms of taste.

Next up, our main course... Meat!


steamed fish


fried chicken wings


deep fried trotters with 4 homemade dips


close-up


whole chicken leg


tofu


beancurd skin with vegetables


fried yam balls coated with sugar


fried hing hwa bee hoon


I liked the deep fried trotters as the meat is tender and not too oily (minus skin). The chicken leg was also very very tender and quite likeable, especially if dip in Putien homemade chili sauce. The tofu dish was nice as well. Every dish felt somewhat 'healthy' as it was not overly salty and nor too oily. Except for the steamed fish sauce which came across as abit too salty.


For desserts, we tried these:


cakes and kuehs


jelly


fruits


coffee and gui ling gao


We paid $37 per pax. Service was good and the wait staff were friendly. Plates were changed once during our meal. Felt that the ala-carte buffet was good for people who wants to try most of Putien's food in one seating. It's too bad, our tummies couldn't take it anymore, otherwise, I'd like to try the 'gu lao rou' with lychee and the stir fried venison.

Yokozuna @ Liang Seah Street

Lots of new* restaurants have sprout out along Liang Seah Street, hence decided it is time to pay a visit. Yokozuna Japanese Restaurant is situated towards nearing the end of the street.




Visited on a Sunday at about 650pm, and the restaurant is just about one-third filled. Stark contrast as compared to an earlier Friday that I walked past, where the restaurant was operating at full-house capacity. Nevertheless, we were greeted by cheerful wait-staff, and was immediately guided to our seats by the window.


window view

Dark wooden furniture and soft lightings lend a cosy atmosphere. However, the seating area requires patrons to take off their shoes and do some minor stretch of the limb to climb over the seat (bench) and rest the feet under the table. So girls with mini-skirts.. take care.








interesting motif on the plate


i liked this one, so chose this to use


The menu has the usual suspects of sushis, and dons, fried stuffs, sashimis etc. We ordered a san ten, sashimi ($35 ~ about 22 pieces), and unagi don. Green tea is $2 per cup/glass and refillable.

We were each served a complimentary cold appetiser. Nice gesture from a restaurant.


cold appetiser - tuna mayo with sweet corn + zucchini


The san-ten was good. We liked the avocado seafood ball very much! It was soft, flavorful and simply yums.


san ten - trio of tuna tataki, avocado seafood ball, salmon aburi


tuna tataki


avocado seafood ball


inside of avocado seafood


salmon aburi


It was unfortunate that we didn't get hamachi in the sashimi as their shipment hadn't arrived. Hence, the chef replaced it with tai. Only 2-3 pieces of tai. So even if there's hamachi, I suppose it's still going to be just 2-3 pieces.. =(


sashimi - sake, maguro, tako, hotate and tai


The scallops were sweet, and the roe added a bit of crunch to the soft texture.


hotate (scallops)

Didn't care very much for the tako, but it was quite refreshing to eat it together with a piece of lemon. Zesty~


tako (octopus)


tai, salmon and tuna


The unagi don was pretty run of the mill and quite ordinary. Perhaps comfort food for some.


unagi don


Total bill costs about $70 for 2 pax.